Crazy is just another word for massive untapped potential.
Most ideas that change the world sound pretty bonkers at first. Phytomining, for example — using plants to “farm” metals — was once a pipe dream. Certain scientists have pursued it for decades, but it was mostly written off as too inefficient and expensive to be practical. Then along came Genomines. What was once a niche academic specialty is now outpacing traditional nickel mining in profitability, speed, and scale, all while healing the land. “Can’t work” is rapidly becoming “can’t miss” — and changing how we think about mining.
An idea that didn’t work. Until it did.
One of the most critical challenges facing mining today is that we’re running out of high-grade ore since most of the rich deposits have already been mined. The future of mining belongs to technologies that extract metals cheaply from lower-grade sources, unlocking previously untapped feedstocks. As a chemist who loves to geek out on metallurgy, I am obsessed with figuring out how we can mine enough clean energy minerals to meet the skyrocketing demand in time to hit our climate goals.
So I dove into the literature, kicking the tires on just about every extraction technology out there. I lived and breathed electrochemistry, weak acid leaching, biomining, new chemistry for chelation and solvent extraction.
But in retrospect, I had severely underestimated phytomining because it was seen as such an outlier. I almost blew right past an approach — and a company — that was poised to crush the problem I was trying to solve.
Digging into phytomining.
Let’s take a look at how this unconventional plant-based mining approach works. Some plants have evolved the trait of hyperaccumulation, meaning they can naturally absorb heavy metals from soil in concentrations that would kill most flora. But as I said earlier, the scientifically fascinating idea of phytomining — using these plants to actually mine metals — has been a financial non-starter for decades. Nature gave hyperaccumulators the ability to survive in soils toxic with heavy metals, but the uptake rates were too low to be commercial. In other words, the TEA math just didn’t math.
So in our investment thesis here at Lowercarbon, the phytomining dot was way down in the expensive, unscalable quadrant of the chart. But then we met Genomines, and, well, the dot shot up a few orders of magnitude.
No amount of literature review could have prepared us for Genomines’ series of jaw-dropping breakthroughs. Genomines had cracked what I thought was out of reach. They didn’t just make phytomining possible. They made it more profitable than the most lucrative nickel mines on the planet.
Of course, when it comes to environmental and community impact, the two types of mining don’t even compare. Traditional nickel mines are typically massive open pits dug by forced labor, scarring landscapes that used to be old-growth Indonesian rainforests. In contrast, when Genomines extracts nickel, they leave behind remediated soil ready for agriculture.
It starts with plant genomics getting 50,000 times cheaper.
How has Genomines pulled off this phytomining miracle? By following an exponentially scaling technology curve in synthetic biology. For those keeping score at home, synbio has been outpacing Moore’s Law for years now. Fifteen years ago, sequencing a plant genome set you back over $50 million. Today, you can do it on a thumb drive for under a grand. As for synthesizing DNA molecules? That used to require an insanely large lab budget. Now, you can print DNA in your garage.
This drastic cost drop has unlocked significant discoveries — both in understanding what plants’ genes do and in editing those genes to create superplants with customized traits. You see where this is going. Phytomining’s economics didn’t pencil out with natural hyperaccumulators, but with industrial-strength biotech, we’re no longer limited to what nature created.
Turbocharging plants, microbes, and mineral yields.
Enter Genomines. Armed with Master’s degrees in business and mining engineering, and a Ph.D. in plant genetics, respectively, co-founders Fabien Koutchekian (CEO) and Dr. Dali Rashid (CTO) put together a master plan to change how metals are extracted. Their mission? To make phytomining more lucrative than the old digging-massive-holes-in-the-earth kind of mining. Let’s break down two critical components of their approach: plant genetics and the plant microbiome.
First up, plant genetics. Fabien and Dali led a team of scientists to supercharge plants by hacking their genes. Leveraging today’s cheap and powerful biotech tools, they zeroed in on which genes drive hyperaccumulation in their target plants. They edited the genomes, grew new plants, measured their performance, and then rinsed and repeated — dialing up growth rates, metal yield, resilience to tough environments, and overall biomass (because more plant mass means more nickel). They’re smashing through milestones faster than we’re able to track.
But Genomines’ approach doesn’t end with plant genetics. The company also taps into the hidden power of microbes. Think of microbes as a tiny pit crew for plants, fueling them up and helping them grow. Microbes fix nitrogen from the air, extract nutrients from the ground, and even help plants fend off pathogens. Genomines specifically tailors microbes for their enhanced plants, boosting their growth even in harsh environments. Most importantly, they use microbes that break down the soil’s naturally occurring metal compounds into forms the plants easily absorb, increasing the plants’ metal uptake.
Taken together, these technology drivers make Genomines’ phytomining approach cheaper than traditional nickel mining — something that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago.
Cleaning up the land, cleaning up mining, and just plain cleaning up.
Genomines’ groundbreaking — and ground-preserving — mining tech stands in stark contrast to conventional mining in other key ways. First, Genomines is purpose-built to mine sites others simply can’t, operating on dirt-cheap land in friendly parts of the world that’s too low-grade to mine traditionally but too toxic to farm. Second, unlike traditional nickel mines that take years — sometimes decades — to permit and build, Genomines gets quick agricultural permits, harvests twice a year, and scales fast, especially in the global West. Third, biomass farming keeps capital needs low — both in equipment (capex) and operational costs (opex) — giving Genomines unprecedented agility compared to sluggish mining megaprojects.
But the best part? Their nickel is already going into batteries. With a savvy team running operations across three continents, Genomines has shipped their first kilos of battery-grade nickel sulfate hydrate to major EV battery players. Meanwhile, other marquee names in tech and manufacturing are locking down their clean nickel for batteries, electronics, and more. It’s going fast, so if you’re not already in touch, now’s the time.
It’s worth pointing out that nickel is just the beginning. This same technology works for other critical metals — I can’t reveal which ones just yet, so stay tuned. As the push to electrify everything ramps up, this once-niche technology is becoming the backbone of a $200B clean energy metal market. That’s what drives my passion for Genomines — the potential to mine every metal we’ll need to power the future.
From sci-fi to scale.
In our line of work, you shouldn’t invest without deeply understanding the historical and current scientific landscape of the company you’re backing. Hardtech is too unforgiving for anything less.
But, after almost missing out on Genomines, I’m acutely aware that you also need to be vigilant in spotting the step-function changes that are about to take place. After all, the rapid pace of tech inflections transforming the world these days is mind-blowing. Concepts that felt like sci-fi just a few years ago are now as real as the LIDAR-guided autonomous taxis driving people around California, the complex 3D-printed engine parts rocketing into space, the Gen AI reshaping every industry, and yes, the plants mining metals faster and cheaper than anyone ever thought possible. Just to name a few.
For climate investors in particular, it’s critical to keep questioning our assumptions to unearth the emerging technology trends we might otherwise overlook. To give you an idea, a good chunk of my week is spent aligning with experts on what’s possible today, what could be around the corner, and how to tell the two apart. With so much opportunity up for grabs, shouldn’t we all be asking ourselves what our blind spots are?
P.S. Are you building the impossible?
If you’re bringing to life one of these it-can’t-be-done-oh-look-we-just-did-it companies, please reach out (christina at lowercarbon capital dot com). I’ve had my brain broken before… and I can’t wait for it to happen again.
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